A Review of the Movie “Speak”

The video, “Stolen Innocence” by Courtney Parker, certainly tells the story of the horror of rape. Right now I’m communicating with a victim of sexual abuse of monstrous proportions. She was just an innocent child who fell into a brutal situation. Now, years later, I pray she continues growing after her ordeal.
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A different movie title, for sure, but very appropriate. Kristen Stewart, age 25, plays the lead role, Melinda, as a selective mute, in the 2005 movie, “Speak.”Melinda appears in the first scene vacantly looking in the mirror. Her top seems to be torn, maybe, and her lipstick is…well, she ferociously rubs at it. She’s upset about something, no doubt. Her mother enters, says something, but, no help there.
A following scene shows her riding in a car, leaning out the window backwards, letting her hair blow, just a young girl having fun with a bunch of friends heading to a party. She deserves fun, right? After all, she’s young and fully alive.
Another scene shows her meeting a boy. That’s what young people do at parties, right? They meet members of the opposite sex. Many girls–probably most–just want to have fun. With boys…well, boys can sometimes have something different in mind. (An important note here: so often a girl is accused of dressing provocatively and “asking”for it. Melinda in this scene could not have been dressed more innocently. So, the truth, as I see it, some men will prey on certain women/girls/children no matter what.)
Melinda goes with this boy into the …shadows—and why shouldn’t she? She’s a young girl; she wants to have fun. A kiss begins the fun, then the kiss comes a little stronger until the boy suggests they get even more private. Melinda says she should tell her friends, but, well, the boy wants to go now…so she goes with him, to his vehicle, and the kiss continues until it becomes so strong that she starts to try to stop, and says “No!” more than once.
But there’s no stopping him now.
The rape happens.
Soon we see Melinda walking home, it’s night, and the pain, the anger, the depression, the embarrassment, and the utter loneliness of a rape victim begins.
She just wanted to have a little fun, and became a ‘selective mute’ instead. And what is that? A person so humiliated, embarrassed, depressed, that she didn’t want to talk to or see anybody. Think of the courage it took to even go to school….
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The events didn’t happen in the order I described them. The movie jumps around quite a bit, but it’s also quite easy to follow and to know what’s happening. I don’t know how soon Melinda’s first day at high school happens, but when it happens she’s not ready. Each step she takes now, she is so aware of the not-understanding world that can sometimes close in on her with no warning.
The bus arrives. The driver looks at her, vacantly. (And of course he has no idea how she’s feeling.) She meets another girl, and even though Melinda says very little, they do become…“best” friends, and that might be the most heartbreaking scene in the movie, when that girl explains to Melinda that they can’t be friends anymore, and even makes a crude attempt at explaining why.
So that girl becomes her “ex” best friend.
I’m not going to describe the whole movie. There’s lots more characters to appear, some good, some bad, and at least one teacher becomes especially good. He gives Melinda—without being obvious—what she needs: encouragement, that she can do.
Some kids bullied Melinda, others ignored her, sometimes they pointed at least toward her leaving no doubt what they meant, others tried to humiliate her, but nobody actually physically “hurt” her, well, other than the rape. The rape hurt her badly, very badly, but she survived it.
My bottom line here is that I can identify with that girl, what she went through those early months in high school. Nobody hurt me, teased me, bullied me, nothing, but I witnessed other kids—friends—getting bullied and hurt and humiliated, and I didn’t help them. (I still have those past mind pictures as if happening yesterday, and the memory: I did not help them.)
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In this second video, a love song from the movie “Twilight” “Stay With Me” by Danity Kane, Kristein stewart looks a bit happier, and the guy looks a bit nicer, but having seen none of the “Twilight” series, I of course don’t know. We’ll hope.

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